Review of The Lady Vanishes (1938) by Ryan D — 08 Nov 2009

The Lady Vanishes is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best-known British films and by far the most well-received of his films I have not yet seen (all of which are British). This film is set in a fictional Central European country with most of the action taking place on a train. The female lead meets a woman but that woman seems to vanish. When the lead asks about the woman she was with nobody has any recollection of her and a doctor convinces her she was probably hallucinating due to a blow to the head. Eventually all sorts of clues show that she did in fact meet such a woman and something wrong was happening on the train. The film is a fairly typical Hitchcock film and has some spy thriller elements and a MacGuffin.

The film stars Margaret Lockwood as the female lead along with Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, and a host of others. I'm not terribly familiar with any of the actors in this film but I think they made a pretty believable cast. They played their parts fairly convincingly and I can't think of any cringe-worthy moments in terms of their acting.

Overall, this film seemed very typical of an Alfred Hitchcock film and that is certainly a good thing. This was the penultimate film he made before coming to the United States and this film seems a lot more American than the other British films I have seen. The ultimate solution to the plot was somewhat confusing and never really answered which is fairly typical of Hitchcock's work. In addition to the MacGuffin, the film has several other Hitchcock elements such a train, eating scenes, a Hitchcock cameo, and a bunch of other stuff. This is far from Hitchcock's greatest films but it is certainly a good film.

86/100.

B.